Matt Becker from Windsor assists his daughters, Kylie Becker, 5, at left, and Annika Becker, 7, as they ride their bikes at Founders Green Park. / Don Reichert/For the Beacon

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Recreational opportunities, local schools and its central location in Northern Colorado all contribute to Windsor’s placement on a list of the top 10 Colorado towns for young families.

The list, which was compiled by consumer advocacy website NerdWallet.com, ranked Windsor at No. 8 — just above Durango and behind towns such as Broomfield, Parker and Superior.

“There’s a lot of young families, a lot of parks around,” said Shellee Chambers, a Windsor resident and mother of two, while taking a break from walking her 2-year-old daughter, Maecee, around Windsor Lake on Wednesday morning. “The community is just really close and involved in stuff. That’s pretty much why we moved here.”

Windsor Lake, along with the town’s quiet downtown, was also cited as a reason for Windsor landing on the list.

Andrea Nettles, who has two young children, said she moved to Windsor with her family because of the atmosphere.

“I grew up in Colorado and lived in Kansas City for a while and realized that we missed it here,” Nettles said. “We picked Windsor because it seemed like a little bit of a smaller town. We didn’t want to be in a big city.”

According to the NerdWallet list, the website took each town’s quality of public education, economic growth and cost of living into consideration when narrowing down the top 10 towns.

Windsor’s GreatSchools ranking of 7 was taken into account along with the median home value, monthly owner costs, median household income and growth from 1999 to 2011 to give the town a total score of 54.2 points.